ly humorous songs which my uncles knew were negro ditties, like
_Camp Town Racetrack_ and _Jordan am a Hard Road to Trabbel_ but in
addition to the sad ballads I have quoted, they joined my mother in _The
Pirate's Serenade_, _Erin's Green Shore_, _Bird of the Wilderness_, and
the memory of their mellow voices creates a golden dusk between me and
that far-off cottage.

During the summer of my eighth year, I took a part in haying and
harvest, and I have a painful recollection of raking hay after the
wagons, for I wore no shoes and the stubble was very sharp. I used to
slip my feet along close to the ground, thus bending the stubble away
from me before throwing my weight on it, otherwise walking was painful.
If I were sent across the field on an errand I always sought out the
path left by the broad wheels of the mowing machine and walked therein
with a most delicious sense of safety.

It cannot be that I was required to work very hard or very steadily, but
it seemed to me then, and afterward, as if I had been made one of the
regular hands and that I toiled the whole day through. I rode old Josh
for the hired man to plow corn, and also guided the lead horse on the
old McCormick reaper, my short legs sticking out at right angles from my
body, and I carried water to the field.

It appears that the blackbirds were very thick that year and
threatened, in August, to destroy the corn. They came in gleeful clouds,
settling with multitudinous clamor upon the stalks so that it became the
duty of Den Green to scare them away by shooting at them, and I was
permitted to follow and pick up the dead birds and carry them as "game."

There was joy and keen excitement in this warfare. Sometimes when Den
fired into a flock, a dozen or more came fluttering down. At other times
vast swarms rose at the sound of the gun with a rush of wings which
sounded like a distant storm. Once Den let me fire the gun, and I took
great pride in this until I came upon several of the shining little
creatures bleeding, dying in the grass. Then my heart was troubled and I
repented of my cruelty. Mrs. Green put the birds into potpies but my
mother would not do so. "I don't believe in such game," she said. "It's
bad enough to shoot the poor things without eating them."

Once we came upon a huge mountain rattlesnake and Den killed it with a
shot of his gun. How we escaped being bitten is a mystery, for we
explored every path of the hills and meadows in our bare